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Actress Lynsey Bartilson Demands Youth Activism to End Modern Slavery
First international video conference on human trafficking in Los Angeles
Conference participants discussed the $9.5 billion-a-year illegal slave industry, and what youth can do to combat it
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Ms. Pam Johnson of the Canadian Consulate in Los Angeles, being televised for the video hook-up to the Bonar Memorial Law School in New Brunswick, Canada
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TV actress Lynsey Bartilson, star of the Warner Brothers’ series “Grounded for Life,” called on Monday for greater youth activism to end the modern slave trade, at the first international video conference on human trafficking in Los Angeles, co-organized by Youth for Human Rights International (YHRI) and Church of Scientology International.
Bartilson, a spokesperson for YHRI, joined a panel that featured a Canadian movie actor, Tyler Hynes (Best Actor Nominee at the Gemini Awards for Tagged: The Jonathan Womback Story); Claire Kevitt, YHRI coordinator; Lilly Chau of the UCLA chapter of “Americans for Informed Democracy”; and Marie Ngo Nguidjol, a Cameroon exchange student at Los Angeles City College. Through video conferencing with students of the Bonar Memorial Law School in New Brunswick, Canada, they discussed the role of youth in combating the $9.5 billion-a-year illegal trade in human beings. Pam Johnson of the Canadian Consulate in Los Angeles and Rohida Khan of the L.A.-based “African Community Resource Center,” which helps human trafficking survivors, also took part.
Ms. Bartilson explained to the audience that human trafficking is “one of the biggest violations of human rights in the world today, yet the issue is largely buried and rarely covered in the media.” She has made it her mission to help expose — and end — the practice.
Lilly Chau presented the findings of a UCLA research group that more than 15,000 individuals are trafficked into the United States annually. The U.S. State Department estimates that in the United States 14,000 – 17,000 human beings are forced into prostitution, domestic services and farm work, even as the nation celebrates 140 years of liberation from the slavery of black Americans.
“This is not ‘just a Third World’ issue but is happening right here in the US,” said Mary Shuttleworth, Director of Youth for Human Rights International. “Video conferences such as this one are a tool to raise awareness and support internationally for those victimized by human trafficking throughout the world.”
Youth for Human Rights International and the Church of Scientology International’s Human Rights Department have co-sponsored a number of conferences to raise public awareness of human trafficking and so bring about action.
For more information and photos contact: mediarelationsdir@scientology.net
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